V
THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
THE University of Vermont, founded in 1791, though a small college, had an honourable history. Its standard of work compared favourably always with the better New England colleges. Eminent scholars had held places in its Faculty. President James Marsh, one of the first Americans to commend Coleridge to us, was one of the most gifted philosophers this country has produced. President Wheeler, Professor Joseph Torrey, the translator of Neander, Professor Shedd, afterward a member of the Faculty of the Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Professor George W. Benedict, a most energetic administrator, had given to the college a reputation which attracted students from beyond the boundaries of the State. It had a good proportion of eminent graduates.
The Civil War, however, had broken its strength. A large number of its students entered the army, and the boys in the academies were diverted from college to the public service. The resources of the institution declined. Its friends became despondent. Some thought it must die.
But when the so-called Morrill Bill, establishing Agricultural Colleges, was passed, the trustees decided to accept the endowment offered to Vermont and to organize the college in connection with the University. Senator Morrill became one of the trustees. Some of the old classical graduates feared the result.
My task was to organize the Agricultural College and effect a harmonious union with the old college, to aid in raising funds which it was clearly seen were needed, and to inspire the public and especially the alumni with the confident belief that the Institution really had a future.
This required all the energy and enthusiasm which I could command. In some measure the college had drifted away from the people in Burlington, owing to their despondency about it. One of the first steps my wife and I took was to bring the citizens into close social relations with the college. The addition of cultivated young men to the Faculty made this easy. I then improved every opportunity to visit schools, to lecture in many towns, to address the county and state fairs on agricultural education, in fact to beat the bushes from one end of the state to the other in order to convince the public that we were alive and were especially desirous to do something for the farmers. I need hardly add they were the hardest class to convince that we could be of any help to them. With an associate from the Trustees or from the Faculty, I visited Boston, New York, and Washington, to obtain subscriptions. I remember with pleasure as soon as we reached Washington, Henry J. Raymond, who was an alumnus, gathered five other alumni in Congress in front of the Speaker's desk, before the session opened, and after making a handsome subscription himself, induced them all to subscribe. Thaddeus Stevens was one of them.
As we had not funds enough to complete our Faculty, I set myself to teach the branches not provided for, namely, Rhetoric, History, German, and International Law.
The persons who were of the most assistance to me in this work of raising money and awakening the state were Grenville G. Benedict, Secretary of the Corporation, and Professor Buckham, who filled the place of President after I left, until his death in 1910.
In all that strenuous life there were some amusing experiences. I was speaking one day at the State Fair at Brattleboro. As I sat down, a gentleman planted himself squarely before me and exclaimed, "Sir, how old are you?" I was a little surprised at being accosted thus by a stranger. Suddenly it occurred to me that the State Luna-tic Asylum was in that town, and I said to myself, "This is some harmless patient to whom they have allowed liberty." So I said to him, "Sir, how old are you?" He replied, "I am thirty-eight." I then said, "That is exactly my age." He went away satisfied. I learned on inquiry that he was pastor of a church in the town.
Afterwards in Vermont, I was repeatedly asked when introduced to a stranger, how old I was. I know of no explanation, out of China, for such a usage, except that some of the recent Presidents had been advanced in years and infirm, and there was genuine surprise at seeing one so young as I was.